I believe America has an over weight problem, shouldn’t that be addressed with proper education?
You can have all the context you want. My context is reality. Hamiltonian view of GWC.
That’s why they give us physicals when we enlist or are drafted, to be sure they are getting healthy recruits.
Text, not context. Read what is written rather than what you imagine.
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That’s the main difference between the two side.
One side reads two clauses out of context and thinks “hey we can do anything we want!”
The other reads the list of very specific things those clauses were supposed to be limited to and thinks “man have we strayed!”
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It’s not as though it is at all unclear.
Yes, politicians have abused it and the courts let them get away with it in the name of “public good” but it hasn’t changed.
That’s probably my biggest complaint.
The constitution was written supposedly in the simplest terms so that most people could read it and understand it without needing help.
Now days people want to lawyer the hell out of it and try debating the placement of punctuation in order to justify what they want.
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Finding ways to circumvent the constitution is how many of them have made their careers.
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Federal Law? Seems the Tenth Amendment would forbid such a law.
JWK
Call your congresspeople and tell them about the Tenth Amendment.
“The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law that requires anyone coming to an emergency department to be stabilized and treated, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay, but since its enactment in 1986 has remained an unfunded mandate.”
My “right” to health care was granted so long as I paid the medical and dental insurance premiums. Did that for about 45 years. Now I have the “right” to Medicare that I contributed to as well. Come to think of it, now that I’m on Medicare I have more “rights” to pay for the supplemental coverages too!
Gawd I feel entitled?
The meaning of general welfare as understood during our Constitution’s framing and ratification debates.
Well, if your context is the Hamiltonian view of the General Welfare Clause, then you agree that the phrase General Welfare is limited to the specification of particulars found beneath Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1.
Hamilton explains a fundamental principle In Federalist No. 83, which was written to explain the meaning of the Constitution during the ratification debates.
Hamilton, and in crystal clear language, refers to a “specification of particulars” which he goes on to say “evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority “ Hamilton states:
The plan of the convention declares that the power of Congress, or, in other words, of the NATIONAL LEGISLATURE, shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd, as well as useless, if a general authority was intended.
Hamilton then goes on to apply the principle with an example:
“In like manner the judicial authority of the federal judicatures is declared by the Constitution to comprehend certain cases particularly specified. The expression of those cases marks the precise limits, beyond which the federal courts cannot extend their jurisdiction, because the objects of their cognizance being enumerated, the specification would be nugatory if it did not exclude all ideas of more extensive authority.”
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 is immediately followed by “certain cases particularly specified” , and the “specification would be nugatory if it did not exclude all ideas of more extensive authority.”
Of course, this view is also supported by Madison.
Madison states in Federalist Paper No. 45:
“ The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.
The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
And, in No. 41 Federalist, Madison, goes on to explain the meaning of “general welfare” to the Anti-Federalists as follows:
"It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes…to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor [the anti-federalists] for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction…But what color can this objection have, when a specification of the object alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not ever separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?..For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power…But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning…is an absurdity.”
Additionally, in the Virginia ratification Convention Madison again explains the limited meaning of the phrase “general welfare” as follows: “… the powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.” [3 Elliots 95]
And, moving forward we find Nicholas, 3 Elliot 443, regarding the general welfare clause, which he pointed out “was united, not to the general power of legislation, but to the particular power of laying and collecting taxes…”
Similarly, George Mason, in the Virginia ratification Convention cautions the convention:
“The Congress should have power to provide for the general welfare of the Union, I grant. But I wish a clause in the Constitution, with respect to all powers which are not granted, that they are retained by the states. Otherwise the power of providing for the general welfare may be perverted to its destruction.”. [3 Elliots 442]
For this very reason the Tenth Amendment was quickly ratified to intentionally put to rest any question whatsoever regarding the meaning of the general welfare clause, and thereby cut off the pretext to allow Congress, or the Courts, to extended the federal government’s powers via the wording provide for the “general welfare“.
Seems to me all were in agreement as to the meaning of the general welfare clause during the framing and ratification debates. So, what do you mean by the Hamiltonian view of GWC?
JWK
When it comes to healthcare, our democrat candidates running for office have no moral compass whatsoever. They refuse to make the distinction between CHARITABLE GIVING and tax tyranny to support the needy.
You forgot to provide a link to the “law”. I think there is more to the “law” than you would have us believe.
JWK
Such as? Don’t hold out on us.
From the written law:
“In the case of a hospital that has a hospital emergency department, if any individual… comes to the emergency department and a request is made… for examination or treatment for a medical condition, the hospital must provide an appropriate medical screening examination within the capability of the hospital’s emergency department, including ancillary services routinely available to the emergency department to determine if an emergency medical condition exists (5).”
You still have not provided a link to the statutory law. I suspect the “law” may only apply to hospitals who have sold their souls in return for government cheese.
JWK
Elizabeth Warren’s socialist plan for “free” college tuition, and cancelling student loan debt, will be paid for by taxing millions of college graduates who worked for and paid their own way through college and are now trying to finance their own economic needs.
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■■■■ Hamilton.
Which is all of them.
Go ahead and look it up yourself. It’s public record. Read it and get back to us.
So at the end of the day, making healthcare a “right” wouldn’t change anything?
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So, you can’t backup the nonsense you post about the “law”. Before you make comments about the “law”, and that includes “The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act”, determine who in fact that “law” applies to.
JWK
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.___ Tenth Amendment
